Without Consent (15 page)

The following morning, Anya awoke to
the sound of the ocean slapping the shore. Overnight drizzle had made the sleeping temperature ideal. After a lie-in, she cooked French toast and headed for a walk. Even in the off-season, Fisherman’s Bay was active. Older couples walked hand-in-hand on the beach as anglers patiently waited for the next big catch. Toddlers squealed for the sake of it as they chased the waves, then ran away as fast as their chubby legs could manage.

At the end of the beach, she passed a playground opposite the newsagent. Stopping to buy a paper, she asked the man at the counter whether he remembered the Eileen Randall case. The owner seemed less than willing to talk.

“You’re not from the bloody press, are you?”

“No. Definitely not. I was wondering if you know what happened to the policeman who was in charge at the time. I don’t suppose he’s still working?”

“No chance,” the man said. “Charlie Boyd retired years ago.”

Not surprised, Anya paid for the paper, thanked the man and wandered past the tempting smell of hot pastries from the bakery. Sea air definitely increased the appetite, she thought, as kids on bikes rode on the footpath, chomping on pies. The place had such a holiday atmosphere, it was impossible not to feel relaxed.

Just past the hairdresser’s, she felt a tap on her back.

“Excuse me,” a middle-aged woman said. “Were you asking about the Randall case?”

The woman had a broad-brimmed hat tied under her chin. And unlike the tourists, she had on a long-sleeved shirt and long cotton trousers. Her hands were coarse and tanned. She had to be a local used to hiding from the sun, not basking in it.

“Yes, I was hoping to speak to the former policeman, but he’s retired. Do you know anything about the case?”

“You have to understand, people around here are careful about who they talk to. The murder pretty much killed business a while back. And the whole town suffered from the loss of that girl. We don’t want it all dredged up again.”

“I understand, but I’m a pathologist and I just had some questions for Charlie Boyd.”

“A pathologist?” Her eyes widened. “Like on those TV crime shows? Why didn’t you say?”

It astounded Anya that a few years ago no one cared what she did for a living. Now it was flavor of the month.

“Charlie will probably talk to you, then.”

A teenager on a bike whizzed past them, almost clipping Anya. The woman called after him, “I’ll be telling your mother you’ve been riding on the footpath again, Jason Carmichael.”

Anya smiled. People were pretty much the same everywhere.

“Do you know where I could find Charlie?”

“Oh yes, love, down on the wharf. He’s usually there this time of day. You can’t miss him. Looks like Santa Claus with a big silver beard.”

“Thanks so much,” she said, and headed toward the jetty.

Teenagers took turns jumping off the pylons into the water below. She stopped and looked over the side, checking the depth marker.

“It’s deep down there. There’s never been a problem,” a man reassured. He was with the jumpers and was probably used to strangers showing concern about the practice.

Toward the end of the wooden wharf, a man with gray hair sat in a plastic fold-up chair, large fishing rod and basket beside him. On his lap he had a fish clamped to a wooden board. A small radio played.

She approached and asked, “Mr. Boyd?”

“Shhhhhhh,” he said, straining to listen to the news headlines. He squinted up at his visitor. “Who wants to know?”

Anya introduced herself and he repositioned himself in his seat.

She decided to ease into the topic and perched on a bollard nearby. “What have you got there?”

“Bream. Good, pan-size, too. Only take what I can eat,” he said, admiring his prize.

“You’re pretty well set up for it. We used to catch trout in the lakes where I grew up. In the midlands of Tasmania.”

His eyes glistened. “Always wanted to fish there.” He studied Anya for a moment, as though assessing her.

“It’s a long way to come to talk fishing.”

Relieved to have passed muster, she began by briefly explaining her involvement in the current rape cases and the importance of possible links with the Randall case. “I’d like to get a feel for what happened the night Eileen Randall was found.” The wind picked up and blew her hair about her face. “Were you there?”

“One of the worst nights of all my thirty-eight years in the job,” he said, scaling the fish from the tail end. “To see a mate’s daughter killed like that, and then have to go and break the news. But you didn’t track me down to hear that.”

“Was there anything about the scene that seemed out of place?”

He frowned. “In what way?”

“Is it possible she was killed somewhere else and brought to the beach?”

Charlie turned the fish over and removed the remaining scales. “She was killed on the beach, all right. Willard was caught with the body. The bastard had just raped her and still had her panties in his hand.” He gave it one last scrape. “Just like a fish on a hook.”

He stared at Anya with an unnerving intensity. “Why do you want to go raking over this now? Willard’s out and there’s nothing anyone can do. Emily Randall didn’t only lose her daughter that night. She lost her will to live.” He squinted in the distance at an overturned surf-ski. “She died not long after the trial. Her husband passed away a couple of years later.”

The surf-ski rider surfaced and the old man seemed to relax. “I’m just glad they’re not here to see him released.”

“Was there other family?”

He shook his head and tapped the knife on the board. “Don’t think so. Why do you want to know?”

Anya glanced around the jetty. Fishermen packed up their morning’s catches and headed back to town. Seagulls hovered and squawked for burley thrown back into the water after fish had been cleaned.

“I’m reviewing some old cases for comparison with new ones. Old methods versus new techniques.”

“You should be a bloody politician.”

Anya smiled and thought he gave a smirk beneath his beard. The old man swapped knives. This one was flexible and slit the fish from gills to the anal vent. He handled the blade as though it were second nature.

Anya preferred her fish already clean and cooked.

“Do you have any idea how many times Willard stabbed that girl?” he said, without looking up.

“I’ve read Alf Carney’s report.”

“Ah.” Charlie pulled the guts of the fish out with his fingers. “Alf Carney—one of the best.”

Another of Carney’s fans, she thought. Only this time he was on the prosecution side, not the defense.

“It took a hell of a lot of strength to stab that deep that many times,” he said. “Willard was one strong bastard. Nature’s way of compensating, you could say.”

“Something the report didn’t mention was whether Willard confessed to raping and murdering Eileen?”

“Sure did. Then he panicked and spun us some bullshit about watching TV. He was like a walking timetable. Could memorize the TV guide and all he could talk about were shows he’d watched. I didn’t believe anything he said that night.

“Anyways, after something, what was it,
The Eleventh Hour
, I think, he said he took off on his push-bike for a midnight ride and saw something floating in the water. Then he claimed he realized it was a person and carried her up to the beach. He said he thought she was still alive, which was why he was getting her dressed when Eileen’s young friend, Michele Harris, found them.”

Anya remembered the wet clothes. There was a reasonable chance the body had been immersed. “Was he arrested at the scene?”

“That chicken-shit? No. We found him in his bedroom, hiding in the cupboard. Still covered in Eileen’s blood.”

A couple of boys ran up to Charlie and checked his bucket.

“Hey, mister, what’d you catch?”

“Two bream. Real beauties. Want to know my secret?”

Suddenly, Charlie did resemble Santa Claus. The boys nodded eagerly.

“Here,” he said, reaching down to pull a jar from his basket. “I make up the liquid with sugar, water and salt and drop prawns in for bait.” He urged his audience closer with his grubby index finger. “Then I add two drops of aniseed oil. The fish love it.”

“Wow! Thanks, mister. I’ll go tell my dad.”

“So do the fish end up tasting like licorice?” Anya smiled.

“Not to my reckoning.”

Anya was skeptical of the secret but chose not to question it. “You said that Willard later confessed?”

“Yeah, dopey bastard caved in after questioning. Confessed to everything. Reckons she pissed him off and deserved everything she got.”

He chopped off the fish’s head and threw the scraps into the water.

“Willard was always trouble, real antisocial. Used to peep at girls in the changing rooms, steal underwear from clotheslines, that kind of thing. If I’d had my way, we’d have locked him up long before he killed Eileen Randall.”

Old-fashioned policing, she thought. There seemed little point pursuing discrepancies in Carney’s report with Charlie.

“Do you think he planned the murder?”

“Don’t reckon he had the smarts to plan. My guess is she turned him down, said something he didn’t like, and he went berserk.”

The wind gusted again and she shivered. “Were there any reports of sexual assaults around that time?”

“You’ve got to understand that this is a small town and there’s not much for young people to do. There’s the football club, and all the girls treat the players like heroes. There were always whispers of gang-bangs and some of the girls would have participated willingly. Believe me. Occasionally, a girl would accuse someone who didn’t return her affections, but none of them took it further. In retrospect, I guess there could have been some assaults that went unreported.”

Anya stared in disbelief at a man who had been entrusted with protecting the community. Some Santa Claus.

She couldn’t understand the culture of protecting sportsmen, even non-elite ones. She suspected that things in this town had remained pretty much unchanged over the last twenty years.

Charlie thought back. “There were a couple of serious assaults. A local woman identified Willard as her rapist, but he was never charged for it. She wouldn’t testify. She was too afraid when she found out that he’d killed Eileen.”

Anya knew that if Willard were a serial offender, there were likely to be other victims. She stood up and wiped sand off the back of her shorts.

“Is there a statement about her assault that I can see?”

“Not any more, but I’ll see if she’s prepared to talk to you, given you’re a doctor and all.”

“Thanks for your time, Charlie. I’d better get back to work.” She walked a couple of feet and turned. “There was one more thing. I was wondering whether anyone in town defended Willard, stuck up for him?”

Charlie wrapped the fillets in a piece of his newspaper and placed them on top of his basket.

“There’s a local eccentric who carried on about how Willard had to be innocent. He’s an amateur in town who’s charted every tide for the last forty years. A bit of a hermit, but he badgered us day and night. Old Bill Lalor. Lives in the shack at the end of Koonaka Beach. Come to think of it, he used to have a thing for Willard’s mother. He came out with some notion about the tides that night, which was discounted by the prosecution’s expert. Just some crazy bastard trying to get attention. Old Bill still goes on about it to anyone who’ll listen.”

He began to disassemble his fishing rod. “So what are you really here for?”

“I need to know if there are any similarities between Eileen Randall’s death and that of a teacher recently. This one was raped a week before.” Anya paused. “Willard’s under suspicion. If your victim wants to talk, I’m staying here until tomorrow.” She pulled a card from her wallet and wrote the number and address of the cabin on the back.

“Always said we oughta have the death penalty.” Charlie Boyd wiped his hand on his shirt and took the card. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Anya left the jetty and turned to see Santa Claus speaking quietly into his mobile phone. He bundled his belongings into the cane basket, collected his rod and fold-up chair and cut through the pub car park to the police station.

Bill Lalor lived in a dilapidated shack
with his name scratched on the letterbox. The beach was a sheltered cove, and families played, oblivious to what had happened to Eileen Randall so long ago. Anya knocked on a bit of non-chipped paint on the door. She was about to leave when it creaked open.

A short, bald man stood there, bare-chested, in pajama pants.

“I’m looking for Bill Lalor. The tides expert.”

“That’s me.” He grinned, scratching a silver-haired chest.

“Charlie Boyd sent me.”

The man sighed. “You can get stuffed if you’re here to make fun of me. The town eccentric isn’t playing today.” He began to close the door.

Anya held out her hand. “Actually, I am in need of your expertise.” Looking at his attire, or lack of it, Anya offered, “If it’s a bad time, I could come back later?”

“Why would you think that?” he asked, scratching his un-shaved stubble. “Come in, come in.”

Anya wiped her feet on the straw mat. “I hear you’ve got records of every high and low tide in this area for over forty years.”

“Sure have.”

“You must really know your stuff.”

Bill Lalor grinned again. Three of his front teeth were missing.

“I specifically need to know about a date twenty years ago.”

The man’s pale-gray eyes flared, revealing more of the white sclera. “If it’s about the night Eileen Randall died, I have nothing to say.”

Anya could understand the unwillingness to talk to strangers, but hoped this man might be upfront about his theories regarding that night.

“I understand that no one listened to you before. I want to know about the tides that night. Why you think the police got it wrong.”

The man scratched the back of his head. “I got death threats after I went to the police. Someone even burned me old house down.”

Anya said, “I’m reviewing the case. If they come after anyone, it ought to be me.”

“I don’t want my name mentioned. You understand?”

“Absolutely. I’ll get experts from somewhere else to confirm the details if they agree.”

Inside she heard a twitter and the rattle of a bell. She followed the old man down a linoleum corridor into a back room filled with potted ferns. A white fluffy cat sat perched on a chair, clawing at the birdcage.

“Get down, Snowie,” Bill said, clearing the chair for his guest. Overweight Snowie’s bell jingled as it begrudgingly moved.

Then her host vanished. Anya stood in the room, watching the bird, when Bill returned with a roll of maps. He laid them on top of piles of papers on the kitchen table and asked her to hold down one side. She obliged.

“I made copies after that night. Ones for the police, but they didn’t want them. These weren’t at my place when it went up.”

Anya wondered how many other people had been affected by Eileen Randall’s death. The cat purred at her ankles and brushed against her legs.

“Geoff Willard couldn’t have killed the girl at the time they said because of the tides. If you see here, high tide around the bay was 12:43 a.m., but in the cove it had to be earlier.”

Anya didn’t follow.

“The winds, girl. The winds. The expert they got in didn’t factor them. This was a sheltered cove. Missed the mark by a couple of hours.” He paused and seemed to wait for a sign of understanding. “Winds affect the tides, especially in a cove. That expert just averaged the times across the whole of the bay.”

“So what you’re saying is that high tide was as much as two hours earlier than the police thought.”

“That’s right. Willard told his mother he dragged the dead girl out of the water. Only thing is, I don’t know how to prove he was telling the truth.”

“There might be a simple way,” Anya said. “Do you know anything about crayfish larvae?”

“Not much. They live in the sea.”

“The pathologist found larvae inside Eileen Randall’s chest cavity. The only way they could have got there is if they floated in through the stab wounds.”

Bill slapped his leg. “So I’m right. The body was in the water. Willard told the truth.”

“In so much as we now know that the body was floating in the water at some stage. But it doesn’t tell us when exactly.”

Anya thought that it seemed too simple to have been overlooked. If Bill Lalor was right about the tides that night, then Eileen Randall may have been killed before Geoff Willard found her.

She sat on the chair vacated by Snowie. Taking that into account and the lack of blood on his clothes, it was possible that Willard might not have stabbed Eileen Randall after all. If that was true, he’d just served twenty years in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.

Back at the cabin, Anya took copious notes about her discussions with Charlie and Bill. The crayfish larvae could only have got into the body via the water. If Willard had watched the TV show as he had claimed, Eileen may have been killed earlier and been floating in the water when he found her. That would explain the smears on his shirt, if he carried her up to the beach. But why would he be dressing her? And there was the issue of a positive ID from Michele Harris, Eileen’s friend. She circled that fact over and over.

This was the side of forensic medicine Anya loved and loathed. Answering questions was incredibly satisfying, but creating even more questions was a source of constant frustration.

She made a sandwich and pulled out a crime novel. Sitting on the small wooden balcony, she put her feet up on the second chair and began to read. She was yet to find one that wasn’t full of inaccuracies, but she still enjoyed the stories.

The sound of children laughing on the beach reminded her of childhood holidays at Low Head—before and after Miriam had disappeared. That was such a sterile word for what had happened. She thought of her three-year-old sister building sandcastles and obsessively putting shells in a straight line on every one. That’s what Miriam loved to do—build things and make them perfect. And then she was gone.

A young girl squealed with the thrill of getting wet, as her mother stood, huddled, wet up to her ankles. The little girl jumped and splashed, unaffected by the cold temperature. Anya wondered how kids could complain about a tepid bath but revel in a chilly ocean.

Putting the novel aside, she closed her eyes and drifted into a relaxing state with the sun warming her face and legs. Something about the ocean made everything seem insignificant, except Eileen Randall. The thought kept entering her mind. If she had been floating in the water, that would explain the clean feet.

Why would Willard confess to a crime he hadn’t committed? It wouldn’t be the first time the police had intimidated a suspect. And the emotions of the local community and police that night would have been feverishly high.

What was the name of the show Charlie Boyd mentioned? The seventh something. Damn. Anya hated not remembering a name. She grabbed her laptop from inside and connected to the Internet via the phone line. Within minutes she’d located a television guide on a nostalgia site. On the evening of the murder twenty years ago, at 11:30 p.m., a comedy sketch show called
The Eleventh Hour
was shown. It had been cancelled not long after, and faded into obscurity with so many other failed series, according to the website.

Willard had been right. If he had such an amazing memory for shows, he might have remembered some of it. Or was that expecting too much? She wondered if she could recall any of the sketches from revues during her university days. She could remember the funniest ones, but something from a weekly TV show? Only one came to mind. A brilliant impersonation of Brains from the
Thunderbird
s on her favorite show of the time, the
D-Generation.
Maybe Geoff Willard could come up with the same sort of thing.

She thought of phoning Veronica, but decided to wait to speak to her tomorrow. It was probably tennis time, anyway, she thought.

“Excuse me, are you Doctor Crichton?”

Anya turned and saw a woman about her age standing in harem pants, a tie-dyed shirt and a straw hat. She carried the card Charlie Boyd had taken. Anya wondered whether this was the rape victim he had mentioned.

“Yes. Please, come up.”

The woman slowly climbed the stairs and took off her hat.

“My name’s Dell. Sergeant Boyd told me you were here asking questions. He assured me you’re who you say you are.”

Charlie had obviously gone to the station to run a check on her. Fair enough, Anya thought. She explained her role as a forensic physician and the need to find out whether this was the same attacker who was assaulting women in the northwest of Sydney.

“Would you like something to eat or drink?” Anya suddenly felt awkward. She didn’t feel in control outside her normal surroundings. This wasn’t a consult but a conversation, she told herself.

“Tea. Weak, black, thanks.”

Anya boiled the kettle and used the same teabag for both cups.

“It’s so nice on the balcony,” she said to the visitor. “Do you mind?”

Dell looked inside then put her hat back on. “I prefer to be outside, where there are people.”

Mid-afternoon meant the beach was at its most crowded. The pair sat in silence for a few minutes, as they watched the waves approach and recede.

Dell held the cup between both hands and studied the contents. “Have you seen many rape victims?”

“Too many.”

“How do they react to having been through it?”

Anya took a sip. “It varies. Everybody’s different. Some are calm straight after, others are distraught and fragile. It can depend, too, on whether or not they knew their attacker. They all seem to go through a grieving process.” Steam floated above the meniscus of tea. “Healing takes a long time.”

“It took me years. I still have flashbacks to that night.”

“Did you get counselling?”

The woman curled her top lip. “Not around here. Back then, most people thought of counsellors and social workers as feminist radicals who’d created an industry for themselves. You just shut up and put up.”

“That must have been really difficult. You must have been so young.”

Dell looked toward the water. “It probably would’ve been harder if I’d told people. They also thought rape meant you’d led a boy on and then changed your mind when it was too late. You’ve got to remember that this is basically a mining community. They should have called the place Nickel Bay.”

Anya had seen the signs for the nickel mine on the drive in. “So most of the men were miners?”

“It’s always been a small group of locals and a large transient population. The shift work meant the men could surf on their days off.”

The breeze picked up and almost blew Dell’s hat off. Anya studied the woman who spoke so calmly about the past. She had long fingers and odd splashes of paint on her shirt and near her wedding ring.

“There were a few rapes back then, but the police always put it down to the itinerant mine workers, never the locals. When I went to report my assault, Charlie Boyd assured me that Geoff Willard would be sorted out, unofficially, of course.”

The time seemed as appropriate as possible to discuss what happened that night. “Do you mind if I ask you about your attack? What happened?”

Dell took a deep breath, as though she’d been postponing this moment.

“It was a few weeks before Eileen was killed. I was walking home after spending the evening listening to music at a girlfriend’s place. It was probably about half past nine. I remember I had to be home by ten on a school night. Suddenly, I got knocked to the ground and he was on top of me. He pulled my top over my head, so I didn’t really see him, but he kept saying things. Like he knew I wanted it. How he’d watched me. From what I’ve read, most of them say things like that.” She held the cup in both hands. “He had trouble keeping his erection and pushed harder, telling me it was my fault.”

“Did he hit you at all?”

“No, but he pushed pretty hard. I told him it was hurting and begged him to stop, but he wouldn’t.” She put her head down. “I wasn’t a virgin, but it still hurt.”

Anya shook her head. Even women perpetuated the myth that non-virgins experienced less pain and trauma during a rape. One of the worst cases she had seen was a prostitute who’d been assaulted by a client.

“What happened next?”

“He got off me, told me he’d kill me if I said anything to anyone. He ordered me not to move, then he was gone.” She took another deep breath.

“I was so scared. I told Mum, but she didn’t want Dad to know. Said he was under enough stress at work. I stayed in bed for a couple of days and Mum just told people I had the flu. After that, I got used to not telling people. The only other person who knows is Sergeant Boyd. I told him before Eileen’s funeral.”

Anya instinctively reached over and placed her hand on the woman’s forearm. After twenty years, this victim was finally able to tell someone without wondering whether she’d be blamed for what had happened.

Something bothered Anya about Dell’s story. “You didn’t see the man’s face, but Charlie Boyd said you identified Geoff Willard as your attacker.”

“When I saw Geoff on the news for killing Eileen, I just knew it was him.” She put the cup down on the table. “I guess I was lucky.”

“Did you see his hands, whether there were any marks on them?”

“Sorry, but I couldn’t see.”

“Did he say something to you about being hurt and loved?”

“No. He didn’t say much.”

“If there’s anything else that you remember, anything at all about that night, please call me. It’s very important.”

Dell stood and shook Anya’s hand. “Thank you for listening. I know it’s been a long time, but it feels good to finally be believed.”

Anya realized that rather than stirring up pain of the past, their conversation had been cathartic for this woman. For more than half of her life, Dell had kept a painful secret. Maybe now she could gain some degree of closure.

Then again, if Geoff Willard had not committed the murder, or even the rape, the security of the community and victims like Dell was about to be shattered.